On this question of corporal punishment in the schools, Erchie,” I said to my old friend, “what are your views? I’ve no doubt you’re dead against any alteration on use and wont.”

“Whiles,”’ said Erchie; “whiles! I buy the paper ae day, and when I read the wye brutal and ignorant schoolmaisters abuse their poseetion, I feel that angry I could fling bricks at the windows o’ a’ the schools I pass on the wye to my wark; but the next day when I read whit perfect wee deevils a’ the weans is nooadays, and hoo they’ll a’ turn oot a-disgrace to their faithers and mithers if they divna get a beltin’ twice a-day, I’m sair tempted to gae ower to my guid-dochter’s in the Calton and tak’ a razor-strop to wee Alick afore he gangs to his bed, jist in case he’s bein’ negleckit. That’s the warst o the newspapers; they’re aye giein’ ye the differen’ sets o’t, and ye read sae much on the ae side and then the ither that ye’re fair bate to mak’ up your mind. My ain puir auld faither—peace be wi’ him!—didna seem to be muckle fashed wi’ the different sets o’t in the newspapers; he made up his mind awfu’ fast, and gied ye his fit-rule ower the back o’ the fingers afore ye could gie your wee brither a clip on the nose for clypin’ on ye. They may abolish corporal punishment in the Gleska schools, but they’ll no’ pit an end to’t in hooses whaur the faither’s a plumber and aye has a fit-rule stuck doon the outside seam o’ his breeks.”

“Ah yes! Erchie, but these paternal ebullitions of ill-temper——”

“Ill-temper or no’,” said Erchie, “it’s a’ in the scheme o’ nature, and an angry man’s jist as much the weepon o’ nature as a thunderbolt is, or a lichted caundle lookin’ for an escape o’ gas. If ye dinna get your licks in the school for bein’ late in the mornin’, ye’ll get fined an awfu’ lot o’ times for sleepin’ in when ye’re auld enough to work in Dubs’s; so the thing’s as braid as it’s wide, as the Hielan’man said.”

“Then you seem to think a fit of anger is essential to paternal punishment, Erchie? That’s surely contrary to all sober conclusions?’

“Sober conclusions hae naethin’ to dae wi’ skelpin’ weans, as I ken fine that brocht up ten o’ a family and nearly a’ that’s spared o’ them daein’ weel for themsel’s. The auld Doctor in oor kirk talks aboot love and chastisement, but in my experience human nature wad be a’ to bleezes lang afore this if faithers and mithers didna whiles lose their tempers and gie their weans whit they deserved. If you’re the kind o’ man that could thresh a puir wee smout o’ a laddie in cauld bluid, I’m no’, and I canna help it.”

“And did you thrash your ten much, Erchie?”

I asked, with a doubt as to that essential ill-temper in his case.

“That has naethin’ to dae wi’t,” said he, quickly. “My private disinclination to hae the wee smouts greetin’ disna affect the point at a’. If oor yins needed it, I went oot for a daunder and left the job to Jinnet. A woman’s aye the best hand at it, as I ken by my aunty Chirsty. When she had the threshin’ o’, me, she aye gied me tuppence efter it was done if I grat awfu’ sair, and I took guid care I never went wantin’ money in thae days. I was only vexed she couldna thresh me threepence-worth the time the shows were roond oor wye, and mony’s the time I worked for’t.

“When the papers mak’ me wonder whether corporal punishment’s guid for the young or no’, I jist tak’ a look at mysel’ in Jinnet’s new wardrobe looking-gless, and, except for the flet feet—me bein’ a waiter—I don’t see muckle wrang wi’ Erchie MacPherson, and the Lord kens there was nae slackness o’ corporal punishment in his days, though then it was simply ca’d a leatherin’. My mither threshed me because it wadna gae wrang onywye—if I wasna need’nt the noo I wad be need’nt some ither time; and my faither threshed me because there was a hard knot in the laces o’ his boots, and he couldna lowse’t. It didna dae me ony hairm, because I ken’t they were fond enough o’ me.

“In the school we were weel threshed in the winter-time to keep us warm, and in the summertime a stirrin’-up wi’ the tawse a’ roond made up for the want o’ ventilation. If I never learned much else in the school, I got a fair grup o’ nai-tural history, and yin o’ the tips I got was that a horse-hair laid across the loof o’ the haund’ll split a cane or cut the fingers aff a tawse, when ye’re struck by either the yin or the ither. I made twa or three cairt-horses bald-heided at the tail wi’ my experimentin’, but somethin’ aye went wrang; the maister either let fly ower sudden, or it was the wrang kind o’ horse—at onyrate, I never mind o’ cuttin’ the cane or the tawse.

“Whiles when I’m across at my guid-dochter’s, I hear her wee laddie, Alick, greetin’ ower his coonts, and fear’t the maister’ll cane him because they’re no’ richt.

“‘If a cistern wi’ an inlet pipe twa-and-a-half inches in diameter lets in seventy-nine gallons eleeven quarts and seeven pints in twenty-fower and a half’oors, and an ootlet pipe o’ three-quarters o’ an inch diameter discharge forty-eight gallons nineteen quarts and five pints in the six’oors, whit o’clock will the cistern be empty if the ootlet pipe hiz a big leak in’t?’

“That’s the kind o’ staggerer puir wee Alick gets thrashed for if he canna answer’t richt. I couldna dae a coont like that mysel’, as shair’s death, if I was pyed for’t, unless I had the cistern aside me, and a len’ o’ the measures frae the Mull o’ Kintyre Vaults, and Jinnet wi’ a lump o’ chalk keepin’ tally. I’m no’ shair that it’s ony guid to thrash wee Alick for no’ can’ daein’ a coont o’ that kind, or for no’ bein’ able to spell ‘fuchsia,’ or for no’ mindin’ the exact heights o’ a’ the principal mountains in Asia and Sooth America.

“Hoo wad ye like it yoursel’? Ye canna put mathematics into a callan’s heid by thrashin’ him ower the fingers, if he’s no’ made wi’ the richt lump in his heid for mathematics; and if Alick’s schoolmaister gaes on thinkin’ he can, I’ll gae oot some day to his school and maybe get the jyle for’t.”

“Come, come, Erchie,” I protested; “you are in quite an inconsistent humour to-day; surely Alick’s thrashings are all in the scheme of nature. If he is not punished now for inability to do that interesting proposition in compound proportion, he will be swindled out of part of his just payment when paid for bricklaying by the piece when he has taken to the trade, and the thing—once more as the Highlandman said—is as broad as it’s wide.”

“Nane o’ my guid-dochter’s sons is gaun to tak’ to treds,” said Erchie, coldly; “they’re a’ gaun to be bankers and electreecians and clerks and genteel things o’ that sort. If I’m no’ consistent aboot, this, it’s because o’ whit I tellt ye, that I’ve read ower mony o’ thae letters and interviews in the papers, and canna mak’ up my mind. I ken fine a’ the beltin’s I got in the school were for my guid, but—but—but it’s different wi’ wee Alick.”

“But we have all our wee Alicks, Erchie.”

“Then we’re a’ weel aff,” said Erchie, glowing, “for yon’s the comicalest wee trate! The Rale Oreeginal.”

“But the teachers don’t understand him?”

“That’s the hale p’int,” said Erchie, agreeably; “the teachers never dae. They’re no’ pyed for understandin’ a’ the wee Alicks: a’ that can be expected for the wages the schoolmaisters get in Gleska is that they’ll haul the wee cratur by the scruff o’ the neck through a’ the standards.. The schoolmaister and the mither ought to be mair prized and bigger pyed than ony ither class in the country, but they’re no’, and that’s the reason their jobs are often sae badly filled up.

“If education was a’ that folk think it is, there wad lang syne hae been nae need for cane nor strap. For mair nor a generation noo, every bairn has had to go to the school—a’ the parents o’ a’ the weans in school the noo have had an education themsel’s, so that baith at hame and in the school the young generation of the present day have sae mony advantages ower whit you and I had, they ought to be regular gems o’ guid behaviour and intelligence.

“But I canna see that they’re ony better than their grandfaithers were at the same age. Except my good-dochter’s boy Alick, I think they’re a’ worse.

“A’ the difference seems to be that they’re auld sooner than we were, smoke sooner, and swear sooner, and in a hunner wyes need mair leatherin’ than we did. Education o’ the heid’s no’ education o’ the hert, and the only thing that comes frae crammin’ a callant o’ naiturally bad disposeetion with book-learnin’ is that he’s the better trained for swindlin’ his fellow-men when he’s auld enough to try his hand at it. I wad be awfu’ prood o’ every new school that’s in Gleska if I didna ken that I had to pye a polis tax for’t by-and-bye as weel as school tax.”

“How glad we ought to be, Erchie, that we were born in a more virtuous age,” I said, and Erchie screwed up his face.

“We werena,” said he. “It’s aye been the same since the start o’ things. I’ve jist been sayin’ to ye whit I mind o’ hearin’ my faither say to mysel’. There’ll aye be jist enough rogues in the world to keep guid folk like you and me frae gettin’ awfu’ sick o’ each ither.”